23 April 2006

The uneasy love-hate relationship between the media and bloggers isn't just restricted to Singapore, as this excerpt from The Economist illustrates:

"Conversations have a life of their own. They tend to move in unexpected directions and fluctuate unpredictably in volume. It is these unplanned conversational surges that tend to bring the blogosphere to the attention of the older and wider (non-blogging) public and the mainstream media. Germany, for instance, has been a relatively late adopter of blogging—only 1% of blogs are in German, according to Technorati, compared with 41% in Japanese, 28% in English and 14% in Chinese.

But in January this year “the conversation” arrived in Germany with a vengeance. Jung von Matt, a German advertising firm, had come up with a campaign in the (old) media called “Du bist Deutschland” (“you are Germany”). The advertisements were intended “to fight grumpiness” about the country's sluggish economy, said Jean-Remy von Matt, the firm's Belgian boss.

But German bloggers found the idea kitschy, and subsequently dug up an obscure photograph from a Nazi convention in 1935 that showed Hitler's face next to the awkwardly similar slogan “Denn Du bist Deutschland” (“because you are Germany”). In the ensuing online conversation, Mr von Matt's campaign was ignominiously deflated. Outraged, he sent an internal e-mail to his colleagues in which he called blogs “the toilet walls of the internet” and wanted to know: “What on earth gives every computer-owner the right to express his opinion, unasked for?” When bloggers got hold of this e-mail, they answered his question with such clarity that Mr von Matt quickly and publicly apologised and retreated.

Inadvertently, Mr von Matt had put his finger on something big: that, at least in democratic societies, everybody does have the right to hold opinions, and that the urge to connect and converse with others is so basic that it might as well be added to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. “It's about democratisation, where people can participate by writing back,” says Sabeer Bhatia, who in March launched a company called BlogEverywhere.com that lets people attach blogs to any web page with a single click. “Just as everybody has an e-mail account today, everybody will have a blog in five years,” says Mr Bhatia, who helped to make e-mail ubiquitous by starting Hotmail, a web-based e-mail service now owned by Microsoft. This means, Mr Bhatia adds, that “journalism won't be a sermon any more, it will be a conversation.”

And one wonders: would an approach such as Mr Oh's (described below in the same survey) be viable in this region? There is already www.MalaysiaKini.com, but might a SingaporeToday.com be subject to prevailing the media regime? But oh, silly me! How could I forget existing efforts towards a better tomorrow, which wisely steers away from danger with the ingenious disclaimer of non-agenda-based editing...

“We changed South Korean politics and the media market, but I'm too shy to say that,” says Oh Yeon Ho before he can catch his own irony. But Mr Oh, the founder and boss of Ohmy News, a sort of online newspaper, has earned the right to boast, because Ohmy is the world's most successful example to date of “citizen journalism” in action.

Ohmy's website currently gets an average of 700,000 visitors and 2m page views a day, which puts it in the same league as a large newspaper. But Ohmy has no reporters on its staff at all. Instead, it relies on amateurs—“citizens”, as Mr Oh prefers to call them—to contribute the articles, which are then edited by Mr Oh, a former magazine journalist, and a few colleagues. Mr Oh likes to think of Ohmy as a “playground” for South Korean hobbyists, where “adults” set certain rules and thus give the site credibility. The articles tend to be good, because “in South Korea we have good people power,” says Mr Oh. “They are highly educated and eager to change society.” Ohmy also has built-in feedback and rating systems so that the best articles rise to the top.

One of Ohmy's biggest innovations is economic. The site has a “tip-jar” system that invites readers to reward good work with small donations. All they have to do is click a little tip-jar button to have their mobile-phone or credit-card account debited. One particularly good article produced the equivalent of $30,000 in just five days. Ohmy's own economics also appear to be working well. Even though Mr Oh originally intended the company to be not-for-profit—“my aim was not to earn money but to create a new kind of journalism,” he says—he turned it into a for-profit firm in 2003. He will not divulge how much profit he makes, but the advertising and syndication revenues (from other internet sites that run Ohmy's articles) seem to keep him going nicely.

Ohmy's success has already had wide ramifications in South Korea's media industry. Although it has not killed off any South Korean newspapers or broadcasters, it has forced all of them to adjust by becoming more like Ohmy. Several newspaper sites, for instance, now have feedback and conversation panes at the bottom of online articles and are trying to interact more with readers. Mr Oh, who left his career in the mainstream media because he was sick of what he saw as their conservative bias, also reckons that Ohmy has helped to improve the balance. If the media scales used to be tilted 80% in favour of conservatives, he thinks, Ohmy has reduced that to 60%; he wants to make it 50%.

19 April 2006

If you happen to have an hour to spare on a dreary afternoon, you could do worse than poke your duck into this touring exhibition of Jamu at the NUS Museum in the University Cultural Centre (that shining glassy building overlooking the AYE).

It seems many people here associate Jamu with notions of sleazy little herbalist outfits based in Joo Chiat near the Malay Village. It may well be that the vital task of making one's duck big, strong and squirty is a part of the Jamu practitioner's herblore, but there is much more to this world of savoury scents and spiritual balance than just concoctions that promise to lubricate nocturnal trysts.

The Hindu Goddess of Science and Beauty, Dewi Saraswati, holding a chain of beads and a lontar (a script written on palm leaves).

A pair of ancient stone carvings depicting Ken Dedes, a goddess of beauty. She was the wife of an ancient king. According to one tale, a rival ruler, Ken Arok, happened to see her when a wind blew up her gown. A vision came to him that she must become his wife. A pesta sandiwara ensured. The reliefs were originally placed back-to-back but were probably positioned side by side for the exhibit to ward off any perverse ideas that visitors might conjure.

Beneath its Muslim veneer, life in much of Indonesia retains facets that have survived the collapse of earlier empires: the Hindu Majapahit kingdom that spawned a refugee whose heirs still overlook the stifled straits; the cursed domain of Singhasari; the vast Buddhist realm of Srivijaya; and the alluvial deposits of Sailendra that shone as Rome faded. It's likely that if one scratches the underlying layer of assimilated faiths, traces will appear of even earlier credos that link life and death to the fickle forces of nature that govern this land of spewing fire and surging water.

A shaman's asmat chair from which the dukun intones his benedictions. It doesn't look particularly comfy, but try not to sit on it anyway. You never know what that woody guy might do....

The word Jamu has its origins in the ancient Krama Javanese tongue that defined "magical formulas" as Jampi. It's a curious observation that the ancients from Java to Sparta regarded balance as an essential trait of human health. The Greeks (and Europeans up to the late Middle Ages) sought to heal by rectifying imbalances that result in an excess of one or more of the four temperaments: the sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic. The Book of Tao regards a harmonious and interdependent interaction between the yin and yang forces as the key to physical well-being.

The boxy thingy is a 'thumb piano'. It looks more like one of those ancient Chinese torture devices to me. But that may well be the result of trying to play it.

Similarly, the early irrationalism of ancient Indonesia gave rise to a syncretism that ascribes power over life and fate to an invisible force that permeates the material world. When disturbed or neglected, illness results which is soothed with the aid of individuals – dukun or balian – who have the gift of transcending the physical sphere with offerings and supplications to appease and mend the disruptions of a parallel realm. Some even take to harnessing these forces – bred in the shells of unborn babies – for goals good and foolish. Others assume the guise of storytellers who beguile the nights of fragile villagers with leathery reenactments of heroic times and the otherworldly rhythms of ringing gamelan. Later, it was thought that certain objects such as kris daggers, amulets and magical paintings could, with the right ritual, endow protection upon the living. The bioactive brews of indigenous plants and animals were also brought into play, having powers both real and imagined to raise the thermal sensibilities of chilled souls or stem the overheated passions of fevered spirits. Whatever the means, the desired end was one where the worlds of men and domains of gods and demons encircled each other in a dance of dynamic harmony.

It's believed that up to 80% of women in Indonesia have used Jamu formulas to heal, thrill or even kill. Even today, perceptive visitors to the archipelago's thronging cities can glimpse occasional ibus with a basket of bottles on their backs, ferrying to the doors of humble citizens the premixed remedies of folk wisdom. It's also thought that the high reliance on balms that beautify and charms that cast amorous spells stem in part from the ease with which local men could divorce their wives, who as a result sought manifold means to secure their menhood, or sow the retribution of spurned spouses. It must have been a dangerous time for many ducks...

A basket used to put sick monkeys babies in.

The wise few who have mastered the art of treading between the worlds of the visible and ethereal became, and still are, indispensable overseers of life's vital milestones. Dukun bayi were present to ensure the infants and mothers were safe from assaults from jealous, unchilded spirits, while the dukun hujan possesses the means to evoke showers of harvest blessing from the parched heavens. One class of dukuns specialise in the reassembly of broken bones. There are also, of course, general practitioners who dispense elixirs of hope and healing to those plagued by common depressions.

And to this day, despite the influx of Wahhabi winds, the invisible force that grants a measure of control and clarity over nature's will continues to seeps through the lives of modern homes in this land of lost islands. Does mrs budak recall our sighting of a medicine man who with a whisper and flick turned youths on hobby horses into knights frothing with fury? It seems that just beyond our doorsteps, the magic and mystery is still out there, unveiling its might at moments of enchantment.

This carving was placed near entrance to the exhibition. I suppose its fitting, as it has the clear ability to enchant, despite its age...

About the talk - Nudibranchs are highly visible components of marine ecosystems. However most people don't realise how many of them are not native to the countries where they presently occur and have been transported around the globe by humans. In fact the original distribution of some of them will never be known with certainty. This lecture considers why some nudibranchs and not others are amenable to transportation by shipping and why nudibranchs, unlike other molluscs, never achieve the status of "pests" in their new countries and so go unnoticed.

About the speaker - Richard Willan is Curator of Molluscs at the Northern Territories Museum in Darwin, Australia. He has wide-ranging systematic interests in nudibranchs and bivalves. He has studied molluscs for more than 40 years and joined the MAGNT in 1992. He is an experienced diver and has carried out field work in much of Australia, also in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, North America and Europe. He is a Past President of the Malacological Society of Australasia and Life Member of the Conchology Section of Auckland Museum. He has authored or co-authored four books, over 100 scientific papers, and numerous popular articles.

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My duck managed to catch a portion of this talk despite severe weather conditions that threatened to detain him amidst a centenary of campus celebrations. But happily, Siva was able to drop me off below the department. It was one of those days when I ventured outdoors without a watch, and worse, minus a pen and spare batteries. So I waddled breathlessly into the conference room while the talk was about a third through, and plonked my damp duck on one of the chairs close to the front row. The unfortunate lady beside me was disturbed by a blatant request for a writing utensil, which she finally produced after rummaging through her bags. The pen was florescent pink, just like my duck!

By the time I arrived, Dr. Willan was already wrapping his introduction to those colourful sea slugs better known as nudibranches. Basically, these are shell-less molluscs in the suborder Nudibranchia, order Opisthobranchia, which utilise camouflage, or more commonly nasty stinging cells and unpleasant flavours to ward off hungry seafood-seeking ducks. I am sure there are lots of other interesting facts about these creatures, but what I can recall at the moment is that Dr. Willan believes those species that are able to retract their gills (nudibranch means 'naked gills') fully into their mantle (the cryptobranch dorids) are monophyletic, while those who do not do so (the phanerobranch dorids) are paraphyletic. Or was it the other way around?

Dr. Willan also showed some pretty pictures of a thing he calls the Spanish dancer. It looks like something that Catherine Zeta-Jones wore to the ball in The Mask of Zorro and I gathered that apart from its ability to dance a mean samba, this undulating wave of scarlet is significant for some other reason that I just can't remember. Something to do with its morphological symmetry, I believe. Nudibranches are also hemaphrodites, meaning they have both ducks and .....

My cold, wet and hungry duck also learnt that there is virtually nothing edible in the sea that nudibranches do not eat. Because nudibranches are the hot-rods of the molluscan world (excepting those flyboys the cephalopods), cruising at speeds that far exceed a limpet's pace, they run on heavy fuel. So while smaller relatives may thrive on mere algae, most nudibranches subscribe to the Atkins diet of protein-rich meals such as sponges (including tough, calciferous species), hydroids, bryozoans and other cnidarians such as anemones and jellyfish.

One pelagic species, Glaucus, cruises the high seas gobbling up Portugese men 'o war colonial jellyfish. And instead of being digested, the cnidarian's stinging nematocysts are separated in the nudibranch's body and reextruded to serve as protective organs. Some nudibranches specialise in feeding on other species of nudibranches, utilising the gory procedure of chewing a hole in the side of the prey animal and sucking out the contents to leave behind a sorry sack of skin. Others dedicate themselves to devouring the caviar of fellow nudibranches.

Dr. Willan also mentioned that recently, a new species of colourful nudibranch with pretty black and yellow spots was discovered in Singapore waters. However, this slimey finding should by no means result in any unnecessary disruption of budgetary meetings, especially since marine biology and its obtuse branches such as the study of fouling species, should never impose its concerns on greater affairs of state. Many other species of nudibranch plague local waters, such as Tritonia bollandi and a selection can be seen here, here and here.

Moving on, Dr. Willan also happily revealed that he was the key villain responsible for the deaths of countless marine life from big barramundi to bite-size bivalves at a marina in the coastal city of Darwin, Australia. Before Ria could throttle him, he explained that the mitigating factor was a small shellfish called the black-striped false mussel (Mytilopsis sallei). This creature belongs to the same family as Dreissena polymorpha, aka the zebra mussel that has wrecked havoc on the ecology and economy of the Great Lakes region in North America.

Cullen Bay Marina is a posh seaside neighbourhood flanked by expensive villas, shining yachts and topless Sheilas. Due to Darwin's phenomenally high tides (up to 8 metres), a lock is used to maintain the water level in the marina. This physical barrier between the open sea and the marina created an artificial estuary habitat of sorts, providing a home for brackish water animals such as archer fish and barramundi. In 1999, a team led by Dr. Willan found that boats and other hard substrates in the marina were heavily infested by M. sallei. The species is not native to Australian waters and it was feared that the mussels would spread along the country's coast, disrupting native ecosystems as well as causing severe fouling problems on seawater intake pipes, marine vessels and harbour facilities.

The discovery was declared a national disaster (and a state cabinet budgetary meeting disrupted in the process) and the marina and its fleet quarantined. As M. sallei has a high tolerance for various salinity levels, freshwater flooding was not a solution. Dr. Willan thus opted for the "Duke Nukem" approach: adding six metric tons of copper sulphate to eradicate all the mussels (and other life) in the marina. Though drastic, the measures were effective and after the treatment period, marine life in the marina enjoyed a recovery. The authorities also put in place strict shipping rules to keep vessels with fouled hulls (particularly those from Indonesian waters) away from Australian waters, as such ships are suspected to be the primary source of the infestation.

Another innocuous-looking invader in Australasian waters is the Asian Bag Mussel (Musculista senhousia). Native to the north-western Pacific, ballast water from ships is believed to be the dispersing force that brought vast beds of this bivalve (up to 472 animals per 0.1 square metre) to the southern seas, displacing native benthics and seagrasses. I note with some pleasure that diving ducks are known to feed on this pest.

In Tasmania, a prolific filter-feeding gastropod from New Zealand called the Screw Shell (Maoricolpus roseus) has firmly established itself, thanks to the lack of native predators equipped to tackle its hard shell. Dr. Willan believes the snail was inadvertently introduced earlier last century when oysters from New Zealand waters were imported to replenish dwindling Australian stocks.

I know the above has little to do with nudibranches, but in the final leg of his talk, Dr. Willan returned to his original trail of slime and discussed the observation that many species of nudibranches have taken advantage of shipping routes to become globe-trotters. For instance, the South African nudibranch Polycera capensis has reached Australia, probably via bryozoan colonies on ship bottoms. Dr. Willan noted that 19 mollusc species are known to have been
introduced to Australia. Fourteen are nudibranches, while the rest are
mainly mussels. However, there has been no observed negative effect on local ecosystems by the naturalised nudibranches. In other words, the nudibranches are invasives, but not pests, unlike many other molluscs. But why not?

To this duck, one possible explanation could be that the troublesome invasive molluscs tend to be generalists: filter-feeders and detritius munchers with high rates of reproduction as befits species who are grazers and mowers by habit. In habitats far from their native waters, the absence of customary predators and parasites removes a population ceiling that would otherwise keep populations in check, allowing them to outcompete local species that occupy the same niches.

Dr. Willan also suggests that food specificity is a limiting factor for nudibranches. Being predators of emphemeral prey, nudibranches probably need to cover much ground in between the discovery of suitable feeding locales. As top predators that also invest much energy into specialised biochemical defenses, their reproduction rates (and larval survival) may also be lower, and time to maturity longer, compared to molluscs that adopt a 'survival by sheer volume' strategy. Thus, the constraint of their ecological roles and selective diet may well contribute to prevent nudibranches from running rampant in new habitats.

Sorry, but that's all I can recall from the talk. By the end of it, my duck was in a state of suspended animation and was probably in such a bad condition that Joe pretended not to recognise me before she ran out of the room shrieking. :P I also failed to notice any tall, Beng-like ang moh or snake-eating E.R. doctors who might have helped to examine my duck before it expired in a mouldy heap at the back seat of a taxi that took far too long to arrive.

16 April 2006

I must say these recent proposals for water sports on the reservoirs are getting a bit too much – even the bugs are water-skating!

Yes, I know it's a beast, not a bug. But to some people, they are all the same – beastly bugs and bugsome beasts, bothersome creatures to be swatted and stoned whenever they cross the path of refined primates.